7/16/2009 @ 6:00PM

The Hot Jobs Where Pay Is Rising In The Recession

Yes, there has been a dark cloud hanging over the economy. Layoffs everywhere, and salaries flat or cut for most workers. But there’s always a silver lining somewhere.

Even now, some professions are thriving, and some people are earning more than ever before. PayScale, a compensation data company, just completed a study in which it examined more than 400 jobs nationwide and identified the few that had had salary increases of at least 1.5 % in the past year and 6% over the past three years. At the top of the list, ranked by median salary: pharmacist. The median income for an experienced pharmacist as of July 1, 2009, is $110,000, up 2% from a year ago and 11% from three years ago.

“We weren’t too surprised that a lot of these jobs are in health care. It’s a field that has very strict educational requirements, and not anyone can just jump into it,” says Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis for PayScale. The majority of PayScale’s hot jobs are in health-related fields. People don’t get sick any less in a recession. In fact, violence, abuse and depression rates rise under economic stress. During the Great Depression, suicide rates went up considerably. Therapists of all kinds are more valuable than ever before. Part-time and retired nurses are being called back to work, partly to serve an aging and increasingly needy population.

“An individual 65 or older requires three times more health care resources than someone in their 20s,” says Susan Nowakowski, the chief executive officer of AMN Healthcare. “The aging of baby boomers is going to drive up demand for all health care services, and health care reform will increase that demand even more.” There will be more than 40 million Americans over 65 by next year, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Engineering, particularly civil engineering and project engineering, is another area that shows excellent pay prospects. That is thanks to both the stimulus package, which set aside $90 billion for public infrastructure, and a steady demand for private energy and utility projects.

Still, PayScale found that many jobs have suffered severe pay cuts since July 1 of last year; wages for investment banking associates dropped by 30% to 40%. Even the top jobs saw only narrow growth last year, led by a 4% increase for both medical/clinical laboratory technologists and physical therapy assistants.

In the past, PayScale was able to apply a tougher standard in choosing its hottest jobs for pay increases. It used to consider only jobs whose pay had gone up 4% in the previous year. But that wasn’t possible at a time when nearly all jobs hadn’t seen any raises at all.

“This year for the first time ever we’re seeing a lot of jobs that are flat in pay,” Lee says. “It looks like the standard is zero.”

Count yourself very lucky if you’ve got one of these jobs whose pay has actually been increasing. Everyone else will have to accept the bottom line of PayScale’s findings: Getting no pay cut is the new raise.